Mala Burt, who writes with Laura Ambler, blogs about inspiration in writing, gardening, food, and life in St. Michaels – the prettiest town on Maryland's Eastern Shore.

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Tag Archives: Sheffield mums

Our neighborhood is finally getting some color on the trees. A sugar maple on the other side of the fence is orange. If I hadn’t been out taking photos I wouldn’t have noticed how the sugar maple complements the brick on my house. Out of my office window I see a yellow leafed maple, and beyond that some reds. The crepe myrtles usually have lots of color but so far mine are still green. I’ll stop complaining and enjoy what we get this year.

2. The seed heads of the native milkweed are open. I’ll push some seeds in the ground here and there and hopefully get babies. The butterflies, especially the Monarchs, love the milkweed flowers.

3. I have seen more bees on the Sheffield mums this week than I have seen all summer. At least I think this is a honey bee athough it doesn’t have the orange stripes with which I’m familiar.

4. Following a suggestion from another SoS gardener, I stapled bird netting to my wooden fence. The clematis seems to appreciate having something other than the trellis to climb on. And the yellow jasmine is finally happy. When I put it in this spot in the spring the ground was so wet for so long, I thought I might lose it. It should be spectacular next spring.

5. The rainbarrels have been emptied. They were made from food grade 50 gallon plastic drums used by a local wine maker and were free for the taking. Porch furniture has been stored behind the shed. Potted geraniums have been brought inside along with a couple of other tender things. They fill a corner of the living room and get light through a sliding door. Leaves are coming down and that will be the next clean-up job.

6. This is one of the crepe myrles in the area where I took out the river birch. It grew lopsided as it reached for the sun although I rather like the wonkiness of the trunks. I am hopeful with the birch gone I can coax it to fill out on the empty side. The husband will get those birch logs moved eventually. They won’t be fire ready for a year.

The trees in the neighborhood are beginning to show subdued color, but nothing like the riotous hues of some years. I’ll enjoy the show before the leaves are on the ground and need to be raked.

On Friday I had a garden helper with a chain saw. We took down the remaining River Birches. This is before.

This is after. There are three crepe myrtles in this area which will now have room to expand and I get the borrowed landscape of the back of my neighbhor’s yard. See those two metal rings in the front of the picture? I have four of these hoops that came from half whisky barrels that disintegrated. I previously used them filled with gravel as stepping stones but took them up when I got chips in the spring. Now I’m thinking I may be able to make some sort of sculpture out of the hoops to put on top of the birch trunks. Of course I’ll have to keep after the suckers and use an herbicide or I’ll have another huge tree in that spot. I originally thought I could put the top of a blue birdbath on the stumps but the scale of the birdbath to the stump wasn’t right. I’ll look at it for awhile before I decide. I can always have the stumps cut to the ground in the spring.

2. In late October there are only a few welcome pops of color in the garden. The Sheffield mums are now fully open .

3. The Aronia arbutifolia ‘Brilliantissima’ (Red Chokeberry) leaves are just starting to color and there are small red berries that entice the birds.

4. The hostas are on the way out but provide some needed color in another area of the garden.

5. The Limelight hydrangea is lovely with soft pinks and greens.

6. Not a garden photo but a bit of bragging about winning first place for a traditional pumpkin pie in the St. Michaels Community Center’s pumpkin pie contest last weekend. I hadn’t intended to enter and was just baking two pumpkin pies to be sold by the slice. They turned out so pretty (I forgot to take a photo) that I entered one. And won!!!